Seventy Enter Egypt — The Household That Exodus Will Call Israel

The long family list is not a pause in the story. It records the covenant household crossing into Egypt and creates the opening inventory for Exodus. Judah’s line carries forward Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah from Genesis 38; Joseph’s Egyptian-born sons Manasseh and Ephraim are counted within Israel’s family; and the chapter closes by numbering the household at seventy in the Hebrew/KJV tradition. Exodus 1:1–5 explicitly reuses this family framework and again gives seventy, then immediately narrates their multiplication. Acts 7:14 gives seventy-five, following the ancient Greek textual tradition reflected in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) and supported by ancient textual evidence. That difference belongs in the textual-evidence layer rather than being concealed or harmonized by changing either text. The central canonical point is stable in both traditions: a family goes down to Egypt, and that family will become the people of Israel.